


Wait For Me

by VerdantMoth



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2019-08-23 04:12:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16611707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerdantMoth/pseuds/VerdantMoth
Summary: Merlin just wants Arthur to come back, before he loses himself completely.





	Wait For Me

           “I always thought you were the bravest man I ever knew.” Merlin stands, balancing the Dragon’s Breath blade on his shoulder and barely feeling the edge against his neck. “I don’t know what you thought of me, there at the end. I think I knew, but you always put up such blustering front, even around me.” He pauses a moment, shifting the rucksack on the other shoulder. “Think I know what you’d think know. If you ever thought I was brave, you’d change your mind.” He swipes the back of his hand under his nose. “I can imagine the contemptuous look you’d be giving me right now.”

           Behind him, the sun is bathing Camelot in reds and purples, and before him, a lake surrounding a terrible tower. Merlin breaths and watches the ripples crest towards the tower, the surge of magic warming him despite the chill in the air. He knows what he’s expected to be doing. Gwen will be heading to his chambers now to go over records. In order to try and find other sorcerers in hiding. He’s supposed to check on Gaius, though they both know Gaius won’t make it to the end of the week. He’s supposed to make sure the chains holding Morgana and Mordred aren’t in danger of breaking. They aren’t, he knows. Even now he can feel the magic tying him to them. The ripples he sent towards the tower return to him, carrying the smell of decay on them.

A bell rings far in the distant, and Merlin wonders if it’s for him. He’s not been gone long enough to really warrant it, but with the months Camelot has seen recently and Gwen’s sudden ascension of the throne… Merlin shakes his head and expends a little magic creating a fog that will go on for miles. He doesn’t need Arthur’s gaggle of guilt ridden knights chasing after him. He turns and surveys the forest, and then shrugs as he steps into the thick underbrush, lazily swinging the sword to carve a path to undecided destinations.

\---

Arthur is mocking him. He has been for months now, and Merlin knows it’s all in his head, knows that Arthur isn’t still here, can feel the emptiness in his chest, that constant hollow ache in his lungs that sometimes echoes with a heartbeat. Arthur likes to talk to him in between beats. Likes to comment on the treads of the knights still looking for him. Percival’s steady thumps, and Gwaine’s skittish fluttering. Elyan’s almost musical lope constantly matching the steadfast strides of Leon. If it’s quiet enough, Arthur will point out how if Merlin combined the four, he could almost hear Lancelot’s steps in the pattern. “Always hear the echo of ghost in the sounds of the living, don’t you Merlin?”

Merlin wants to tell him to sod off, but Arthur laughs. “Up and at ‘em lazy-daisy! Isn’t that what you used to say? Smells ripe in this cave. How’re you gonna help me revive Albion if you suffocate on your own stench?”

Merlin rolls over and covers his ears with his hands, trying to drown out his thoughts. The cave he’s hiding in is small and dark, and so damp not even magic fires last. He can’t see Arthur, can’t feel him, but he can hear his laugh bouncing off the walls. Merlin tries to curl up on the stone floor, but it’s cold and sharp, and the wards he put off start screaming beside Arthur’s laugh and he knows if he doesn’t want to get caught here he needs to move. “Please.”

Arthur quiets immediately, and Merlin is able to pick himself up and gather the last of his dried fruit. He doesn’t bother to cover his tracks as he slumps through the forest, sending gust of wind in several directions. Arthur, bless him, stays silent except to occasionally point out low branches and roots.

\---

He doesn’t know when, but the knights have stopped coming. He thinks it might have been a while ago. Arthur tells him it’s been years, but that doesn’t seem right.  Arthur doesn’t laugh anymore. He mostly gripes at Merlin for not returning. “They could be in trouble Merlin. If they’re even alive anymore. Can’t believe my kingdom was left in your hands, and you walked away.”

Merlin likes to call storms up when Arthur really gets going. Great bouts of lightning and thunder that makes his head burst in pain. Sometimes the rain floods all of the caves he might hide in, and sometimes he doesn’t care to hold his head above the water. Arthur gets quiet when he does that. So quiet, Merlin remembers he’s dead. And then, Merlin cries. The skies dry up and he chokes on salt, and his body aches from the tension. Arthur’s almost corporeal in those moments. Merlin can almost feel the king’s hand on his shoulders. “I keep telling you not to cry for me Merlin. Certainly know I never cried for you.” Merlin hates him in those moments, acidic and bitter, burning in his belly.

“You never had to live without me, Sire.”

\---

He sleeps. Long spells of slumber broken only by the intrusions of progress and curiosity. He hides beneath a crumbling tower, with a lake that’s shrouded in an unnatural fog. Sometimes he dreams. There’s a castle, and a blonde, and so much red. Sometimes he thinks he sees his own reflection, pale and dark, and too many pieces stitched together. Sometimes there are dragons and swords, and knights he almost thinks are friends. No one speaks to him anymore, and he wonders if he is even real. It’s been so long since he heard the noise in his head, since he felt the echo of someone else connected to him. His body aches all of the time, and he can’t blame it solely on the wet conditions of his stone beds. He thinks he was taller once, that he stood proud, with his head high. He thinks that one his beard didn’t double as a blanket. He’s waiting for something. Something small, something grand.

A voice, perhaps. Like the one that used to guide him through the forest. There’s no forest anymore, but there was a village where the first stood once. Now its great metal buildings and paved roads and roaring land beast that could frighten dragons. He’s old, and he’s tired, and he doesn’t want to wait anymore, but he thinks he must.

One day he wakes up, and the fog is not his own. He can taste something in the air. Something warm and bright and sweet, like honey. The world is changing, has changed, and its returning something to him. He can’t remember what it is, or why it’s important, but that strange cavern in his chest is suddenly too full and it’s exploding out of him. Something is coming, someone is coming, but he can’t remember. He needs to get ready. He must. He’s got a sword and he balances it on his shoulder, waiting for a king to retrieve it.

\---

Inside the tower, a blond man slowly rises from a stone bed. He knows he has a sword somewhere, and a man who is waiting for him. He knows better than to keep his love waiting.

  
  



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